Liu's trial stayed out of the state-run news media. “For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings.”

“For we cannot tarry here,

We must march my darlings.”

–Walt Whitman

Photo by Vitas Luckus

While they were not timid in their prosecution of Mr. Liu, the authorities made sure that coverage of his trial stayed out of the state-run news media.



stay
v., stayed, stay·ing, stays. v.intr.

1. To continue to be in a place or condition: stay home; stay calm.
2. To remain or sojourn as a guest or lodger: stayed at a motel.
3. To stop moving; halt.
4. To wait; pause.
5. To endure or persist: stayed with the original plan.
6. To keep up in a race or contest: tried to stay with the lead runner.
7. Games. To meet a bet in poker without raising it.
8. To stand one's ground; remain firm.
9. Archaic. To cease from a specified activity.

v.tr.

1. To stop or halt; check.
2. To postpone; delay.
3. To delay or stop the effect of (an order, for example) by legal action or mandate: stay a prisoner's execution.
4. To satisfy or appease temporarily: stayed his anger.
5. To remain during: stayed the week with my parents; stayed the duration of the game.
6. To wait for; await: "I will not stay thy questions. Let me go;/Or if thou follow me, do not believe/But I shall do thee mischief in the wood" (Shakespeare).

n.

1. The act of halting; check.
2. The act of coming to a halt.
3. A brief period of residence or visiting.
4. A suspension or postponement of a legal action or an execution: granted a stay to the prisoner's execution.

idioms:

stay put

1. To remain in a fixed or established position.

stay the course

1. To hold out or persevere to the end of a race or challenge.

[Middle English steien, from Old French ester, esteir, from Latin stāre.]

SYNONYMS stay, remain, wait, abide, tarry, linger, sojourn. These verbs mean to continue to be in a given place. Stay is the least specific, though it can also suggest that the person involved is a guest or visitor: "Must you go? Can't you stay?" (Charles J. Vaughan). Remain often implies continuing or being left after others have gone: I remained at the end of the meeting to talk to the speaker. Wait suggests remaining in readiness, anticipation, or expectation: "Your father is waiting for me to take a walk with him" (Booth Tarkington). Abide implies continuing for a lengthy period: "Abide with me" (Henry Francis Lyte). Tarry and linger both imply a delayed departure, but linger more strongly suggests reluctance to leave: "She was not anxious but puzzled that her husband tarried" (Eden Phillpotts). "I alone sit lingering here" (Henry Vaughan). To sojourn is to reside temporarily in a place: "He was sojourning at [a] hotel in Bond Street" (Anthony Trollope). See also synonyms at defer¹.